The guy in charge of Chrome now also runs Android. Now what?

Two Ars staffers chat about the possible implications for Android and Chrome OS.

Yesterday Google announced that longtime Android leader Andy Rubin was stepping down as senior vice president of the division. This is big news, since Rubin had been with Android since before the company's 2005 acquisition by Google—he'll be replaced by Sundar Pichai, who, among other things, is also in charge of the Chrome division.

While we don't know much about the circumstances of Rubin's career move—by all appearances, he'll be staying with the company and working on other projects—we couldn't help but wonder what having the Chrome and Android teams under the same person could mean for Google's two operating systems, Android and Chrome OS. Microsoft Editor Peter Bright and I (Associate Writer Andrew Cunningham) both think that some crossover is inevitable, but we don't quite agree on the form it will take.

Andrew: This obviously opens the door for more collaboration between the Chrome and Android teams. I guess my question is how much.

Peter: Yes. The natural assumption, in my opinion, has always been that Android is the more fully fledged OS, and that while Chrome has a few little pieces that are better developed than their Android equivalents (cloud storage integration, logging on with your Google account), a "merger" would be much more Android than it is Chrome OS.

Andrew: I've always wondered whether a merger was ever in the cards, though. Google owned Android when it created Chrome OS. The two OSes seem to do different things, serve different needs.

Peter: Do they, though? Are they really that different? Android is still sandboxed and locked down (albeit often with easy ways of busting out, unlike Chrome OS), both are designed for cheap ARM hardware. And with the Chromebook Pixel, both are designed for touch hardware.

Andrew: Yeah, but I feel like Chrome OS is more of a Windows competitor. You've got the cheap Chromebooks they've put out recently that go for the light users who only really need a Web browser. They do the Chrome OS management console thing, which is very much like Active Directory minus the cumbersome infrastructure required for Active Directory.

Peter: If you don't want your own domain controller, can't you just use Office 365 and Intune?

Andrew: Sure. But the point is, Google is going after Microsoft's markets with Chrome OS.

Peter: Sure, but I think that becomes more credible with a merger with Android.

Andrew: When you say "merger," what do you mean?

Peter: Essentially putting Android on Chromebooks. Retain the browser-based app support and Chrome OS' system and user management, but with the much richer Android ecosystem.

Andrew: If they wanted to do that, wouldn't they have done it a long time ago, though? I could see that if the guy who ran Android were suddenly in charge of Chrome, but this is the other way around. Google's push with Chrome OS has always been about simplicity—it's just the browser, it's (usually) cheap, you don't worry about malware or installing a million programs or anything like that. And Google has always maintained pretty tight control over the software experience—it's just Chrome, and third parties can't do stuff to it that they can do to Android.

Peter: Yes, but I think that has two issues. Connectivity isn't as ubiquitous as Google likes to pretend, so "real apps" have value, and the limited features of Web apps simply rule out many markets. I think Chrome OS has natural limitations.

Andrew: It does, but Google's push to date has marketed those limitations as strengths.

Peter: You can fool some of the people some of the time...

Andrew: Heh. The thing about the general reaction to this that gets me is that everyone assumes that Chrome OS and Android are destined to become one, and I don't understand why that's the foregone conclusion, except that the tech pundits have never really gotten Chrome OS in the first place.

Andrew: I don't think the second thing is true. Chrome OS is Windows for people who do nothing but the Internet, without the complexities of Windows (for better or worse).

Peter: OK, but there is nobody who does that. There are people who might mainly do the Internet.

Andrew: It's not like Android is built to run without constant connectivity. You can find individual apps that do, of course, but it's a mobile phone OS. It was designed for something that is always connected to the Internet.

Peter: No, but it equips developers with the tools to make real offline apps.

Andrew: Chrome OS has the offline mode stuff, NaCl—the tools are there if people desperately want them.

Peter: I don't think they're really as developed or as widely used as on Android.

Andrew: And speaking of things that aren't really developed or widely used on Android, the tablet apps for that platform are still not great, and that would apply to a laptop too.

Peter: I'm not talking about Android apps as such, I'm talking about apps written for Android. Android toolchain, Android APIs, Android local deployment, but written for Chromebook hardware. So imagine QuickOffice for Android, but built to expect a landscape screen, a real keyboard, and an I-beam for the insertion point.

Andrew: Why is that preferable to Google Drive? Google already has a "solution" for this problem. I don't see how Android apps on Chrome OS makes it better.

Peter: Well the big difference would be that it would be robust when used offline, and it would be more capable than the current Web-based software.

Andrew: I think Google Drive is reasonably robust when used offline. The word processing features most users need are there.

Peter: I don't even use Word much, because I don't really do word processing, but I can't use the online apps. They're too deficient. I can't even use Google's spreadsheet reliably without suffering data loss when my browser gets mysteriously disconnected from their server.

Andrew: So. Maybe these are problems with Chrome OS. Maybe its utility would be increased with better offline apps. But Google has given no sign that it thinks these problems are problems, though the tech to "solve" them has been there for years. I don't know that the company is going to fix something that it doesn't think is broken, regardless of whether it's actually broken or people think it's broken.

Peter: But that's like saying it's given no sign that it thinks not having a touchscreen on Chromebooks was a problem. It didn't, until it made a Chromebook with a touchscreen.

Andrew: Sure, but a touchscreen is additive. It's the same experience with an added input interface. Suddenly putting apps on Chrome OS is a fundamental transformation. It completely runs up against years of effort and marketing on their part. It would be a pretty drastic shift in strategy.

Peter: I don't agree that it is. Which part of Chrome OS hinges on not having local apps? The security doesn't. The transferability between machines doesn't. The low price doesn't. Now, you would lose those things if you made it a total free-for-all like Android on smartphones, but I don't see them doing that. The rumblings about Samsung suggest that maybe, just maybe, they're seeing problems with that route (though I agree that past things like their hilarious failed update joint effort thing never managed to do anything).

Andrew: Which, again, suggests to me that maybe a more Chrome-like control over the software experience may creep into Android.

Peter: If they can. I think it's probably too late. That would be the one thing in favor of sticking with the Chrome OS name: take the good parts of Android (app infrastructure etc.), but call it Chrome OS so that you can justify keeping it locked down.

Andrew: It would probably be easy enough to make Android look and act just like Chrome OS if you really wanted. I just keep coming back to: if they wanted Chrome OS to be more like Android, then why isn't it already? Why have they made zero moves in that direction on the software side?

Peter: I don't know. I just don't think you can say, "they didn't do it in the past" as any kind of meaningful commentary. They didn't do lots of things in the past. That doesn't mean they won't do them in the future. And adding, for example, apps that are synced with your Google account, apps that are safely sandboxed, that seems pretty compatible with the Chrome OS model.

Andrew: Sure. You might have to draw the line at sideloading or something, at least for machines without the dev switch flipped. I'm not saying there wouldn't be benefits to devs and users. I just don't get why it's being treated as a given that it will happen. Rubin doesn't seem to be moving on under the same conditions as, say, Scott Forstall or Steven Sinofsky. With both of those, you get the idea that there was something that Apple or Microsoft wasn't happy with, and that they wanted to initiate some larger change. This switch-up will probably encourage a closer working relationship between the Chrome and Android teams, but I don't see merging the two as a priority for Google.

Peter: I think the Chromebook Pixel is an indication that merging the two is a priority.

Andrew: If your argument is "the Chromebook Pixel has a touchscreen, thus touch-enabled Android apps on Chromebooks are a given" I don't think I'm following.

Peter: The future of Chromebook is touchscreens, and Google's touchscreen development platform is Android. Android app support brings a lot of value to the Chrome OS proposition, and needn't compromise it (as long as things like the hardware root switch are retained). Touchscreen Chromebooks without something equivalent to Android apps make little sense, because Web apps aren't touch apps.

Andrew: Maybe so. I'm really less interested in what Android can do for Chrome OS, in all honesty. I'm more interested in what the person who runs Chrome might bring to Android. Chrome updates quickly, and Chrome hardware from any third party always comes with the designed-by-Google experience on it. Given that Google already feels a bit like Android is getting away from it (see Samsung), I wonder if he might try to control the operating system a little more tightly. They get bad press about the update situation pretty much constantly.

Andrew: There are obviously lots of other entities involved in making the update situation as miserable as it is. But they've made practically no serious efforts to rectify it.

Peter: Yes, and that's the big question in many ways: how much do they even care? They've paid the vaguest of lip service to acknowledging it as an issue, but something like 45 percent of people are still on Android 2.x!

Andrew: Well if you go by the argument that says they make more money on the data gathered by Android than by the OS itself, I can definitely see them wanting to roll things like Google Now out to more people. New Android versions can gather more data more efficiently!

Peter: Haha, yeah.

Andrew: But yes Android is complicated. It's very malleable and people can do basically anything they want to it. And I'm wondering (and kind of hoping) that a management shake-up might bring things just a little more under Google's control. You know, Chrome-style.

Peter: Yes, but Android wouldn't be getting a hojillion activations per second if it weren't for this situation.

Andrew: That's true.

Peter: if Android were tightly controlled, you wouldn't see all these Chinese phones that ship without the Google software, for example.

Andrew: Right. And I guess that's another thing. Android has been plenty successful just the way it is. Even though no one really cares about the Android brand outside of tech circles, it's still on a lot of phones bringing in a lot of data to Google. I wouldn't be surprised if Google just wants Pichai to stay the course, to some extent.

Peter: Possibly, but then why not promote someone from within the division?

Andrew: Yeah. Promoting the guy who runs Chrome to also run Android seems like a pretty explicit statement. I just have no idea what that statement is supposed to be.

Peter: Heh.

Andrew: And I suppose if I were in charge of Android and Chrome OS—the first a massive success despite some shortcomings, the second a niche product that probably can't grow out of that niche—I guess I'd also be looking at what Android features could be ported to Chrome OS. It's already kind of happening—there are screenshots of Google Now running in Chrome that have been making the rounds. I can see features being ported from one to the other, sort of like Apple does between OS X and iOS, but I don't know if they'd just out-and-out port Android to Chromebooks. I see Chrome OS and Android sharing features but not "merging" as such—they have separate goals and (at least so far) Google has taken separate approaches.

Reading what is, basically, an IM log is a bit tedious. At the very least, it would have been nice to divide the log into sections (like the SimCity one). Under some circumstances this format might work, but I certainly hope this style doesn't become a thing we'll see frequently. It works fine as a quick preview of a forthcoming real article, but not as a full-fledged independent article, IMO.

It feels closer to Firefox OS in philosophy, with its thin-to-nothing OS delivering acceptable speed on modest hardware and a reliance on web apps. It's still much more locked down than something Mozilla would ever make, but a merger of those two platforms would make more sense to me than Chrome and Android.

I consider myself a far-above-normal techie, and I have yet to understand Chrome. I mean, what part of the market share were they going after when it was conceived? Like the conversation mentioned, this seems useful only to a sliver of the pie.

If they can get it right with local apps and hold down the ~$200 price point, they might have something worth while. Either Chrome OS is crap, or they have done a poor job in marketing useful features to the public.

-EDIT-FYI: I stopped reading about half-way down -- format was tough going back and fourth with that much content.

I'd say Android apps running on Chromebooks are bound to happen eventually. I strongly disagree that means "a merger would be much more Android than it is Chrome OS".

Running Android apps inside a browser window on a desktop OS (be it Chrome OS or Windows/Linux/OS X through Chrome) makes perfect sense. Having the ability to take them full screen when needed (like any other website) does too. But going the Microsoft way and insisting "modern" apps must be full screen at all times is just asinine.

Loosing the "no local storage beyond cache" stance of Chrome OS is throwing out any advantage there is to Chrome OS and is not going to happen. That doesn't make offline impossible, just different.

They could create an SDK to port Android apps to NaCl where any local storage is mirrored on Drive, and cached on Chrome OS. They could even go so far as merge the stores (Chrome Web Store and Play Store) and all the branding (Chrome OS and Android).

But I don't see them dropping the window manager, adding widgets to the home screen, a full screen app launcher, etc. That's not working so well for Microsoft, why should they do the same? Or dropping the very things that make Chrome OS interesting (zero maintenance, everything at a minimum mirrored in the cloud, etc).

The guys on Linux Action Show were speculating that, based on the Chromebook releases as of late, that Google's ultimate vision may be to phase out the purchased product (Android) for the in-house one (Chrome OS). This was well before Pichai shifted roles; his transition lends credence to this idea, in my mind.

Frankly I was flabbergasted that Chrome OS wasn't Android when it was first released. It made no sense. And sales figures would tend to indicate that it continues to make no sense.

I get the whole debate about online vs. offline - but really it all comes down to apps and developer mind share. There are a ton of Android apps, especially games, and there are a ton of developers who write Android software.

Imagine a ChromeBook that could run all existing Android software (maybe with a compatibility "portrait" mode) and could serve as a developer target for porting/developing desktop like apps?

My guess is that 1) Google has realized that ChromeOS is a worthless piece of klunky, underpowered shit that appeals to nobody, 2) Andy Rubin is tired of the Android project, so 3) Pichai was pulled over to run Android as well as Chrome.

In other words, I don't see a merger here in the technological sense, only in the management sense. If there were a technological merger it would be a colossal mistake for Google, given the runaway success that Android has been.

Personally, when I read the headline all I could think of was "Chrome Phone" like an Ubuntu Phone lite. Simple, cheap, and never a fear of your data being busted out. More for mobile workers who need better enterprise management of the data and restrictions.

I'm definitely in DrPizza's corner when it comes to Chrome OS general purpose utility in relation to Android.

Neither iOS nor Android require constant connectivity and many apps make great use of that fact. Much like my laptop doesn't cease to function when my crappy Comcast internet goes out, on my phone I can still play (most) games, listen to local music and movies and read cached content. Sure, not all apps work this way. Anything that relies on streaming is dead in the water, obviously, and social apps, email and other things have very limited utility offline.

But when you move into full-fledged computer land (like you'd expect with the hardware power the latest ChromeOS offerings), offline utility is much, much better with a traditional OS. I can edit documents, code, listen to music, watch movies, connect devices, etc. etc. I'm not saying the experience without internet is perfect, but it is something. My impression is that ChromeOS leaves you with nearly nothing in that state.

These "articles" are getting real lazy, I don't know who can get you guys to stop doing them but I hope he reads this comment. I didn't even get into the article, I read the intro, the first exchange and got bored and annoyed. If you can't be bothered to write an article, do a short blurb, don't feed us your boring musings with a co-worker.

As much as I truly enjoy the work of all the Ars authors, I'm really not sure that some chat logs speculating on a corporate executive move really constitutes journalism, let alone something worthy of posting.

I wonder if I am the only person thinking that Google should dualboot Chrome OS with Android on today's smartphones. The Motorola Atrix tried it, but its webtop desktop mode has been panned by many critics who tore into the lack of responsiveness of the webtop desktop mode. The high price of the dock/netbook dock accessory also hindered the adoption of the desktop mode. And the fact that the Atrix phone was available on only AT&T, hampered its adoption further.

But Google, being Google, has the motive and weight to push out an implementation of Chrome OS dual booting with Android on today's smartphones and tablets. Motive is clear, keep them using google's products. Google search, Gmail, etc etc.

Why they will succeed, is a question with many answers. Google's launch of Chrome OS dualboot with Android, will be picked up by almost all handset manufacturers, thus building up market momentum. Secondly, the Chrome OS implementation is much cleaner & leaner than the webtop implementation from Motorola. Thirdly, Chrome OS is a proven platform that many OEMs/ODMs are experimenting with. Lastly, Chrome OS is being currently tested with laptops & netbooks with dual core ARM CPUS. Is there a better way of getting into the market than to bundle it with a wildly popular Android platform?

This dualboot ( or rather one OS that is useful as a phone OS and one for desktop use) system is exactly what Ubuntu is trying to achieve. Dock the phone its a full blown desktop and take it off the dock and its a phone/ tablet/ phablet! Maybe Google's move to get one person lead both ChromeOS and Android is a reaction to Ubuntu's emerging threat or maybe trying to get a lead start with an emerging concept?

The more stuff that Google runs server-side, the less the platform matters. If Google Now is an app in the cloud, it can run on Android, Chrome OS, the Chrome browser on a Mac, and maybe even Mozilla on Linux.

In a way, I'm surprised that Android has become such a robust OS compared to Chrome, since, as pointed out, a phone is theoretically a more connected device than a laptop. Still, I really want offline capability. I'll never be a Chrome OS user for my real work, I'm not interested in a non-work-capable laptop, and the more offline capability my phone has the more I like it.

Well, I'll break from the norm here and say I don't mind the format. It's like a podcast but in print: a little informal back and forth between authors that you know are smart and capable of producing polished content. It helps humanize the authors.

Don't give up the day job, but I don't mind these showing up every now and then.

Is the chat/messaging format for news article new? And is it here to stay?

I certainly hope not... they're horrendous.

zer0faults wrote:

These "articles" are getting real lazy, I don't know who can get you guys to stop doing them but I hope he reads this comment. I didn't even get into the article, I read the intro, the first exchange and got bored and annoyed. If you can't be bothered to write an article, do a short blurb, don't feed us your boring musings with a co-worker.

Completely agree... The idea that a chat log is sufficient to be called an article is absolutely a disgrace.

I don't see the value of Chrome at this time. By the time Chrome would work well (really ubiquitous Internet), it would have long been replaced by something.

Sure, Chrome could be polished more, but ultimately the problem is with the vision, not the code. Offline use happens. The best thing that Google could do for Chrome adoption is to show everyone that fast Internet can be had anywhere at any time. Roll out more fiber!!

Or use Android. Which is a better solution in almost every way.

Re: The article format: It's good to try new things, and the discussion-style presentation is fun. Sadly, it's also hard as heck to read. Perhaps redesign the layout?

A stateless HTTP client could work out for Google. A pure HTML5 client will not.

Google sees that ChromeOS as we know it is a dead end, but that's not because it's a stateless thin client dependent upon cloud services. The problem is with its limited runtime platform. A reliable network connection does not render ChromeOS useful for many common productivity use-cases.

I think if I ran the zoo, I'd provide Android support within Chrome, maybe even — thanks to Fragment Manager support in some hypothetical Android 5.0 — allowing them to be resizable windows. This seems about as hard as putting a decent Dalvik engine into Chrome—is there not one there already?—and providing a decent update mechanism. Near-trivial.

Next up on the agenda: beg the W3C to make Android apps part of the standard just like javascript: no plugin required, baseline capability. This would require Google making Android into an actual, widely-available royalty-free system, which they sorta already did in agreeing with China's terms for the Moto acquisition, maybe even releasing it as a full OSS project.

Why give something away? First, to the extent that it utterly destroys others' platform-proprietary app ecosystems (why develop for Windows or Mac OSX when you can just run your apps in Chrome at fine speed?), Google would actually pick up a LOT of control. Once in Chrome, of course, Google has even more control of users.

OK, enough. I'd like readers/commenters to offer constructive criticism as to why this isn't the sensible transition for Google, now that Android has achieved all the breadth it can, but by being forked, is being hemmed in, especially on tablets (and of course, no Google tool has achieved more than a small share of the desktop).

The underlying HAL are quite different in so many ways. There are key elements in the Android HAL that enable API level features (e.g., renderscript compute, cameraHAL). Android's current media support is far superior to what you get today with Chrome (actual HW encode support, etc). Plus Chrome's build system is a pain to work with. It's horrible. Every Chrome device is a nexus device. There is nothing an OEM can do beyond HAL and hardware. Google controls releases and experience. Chrome is a Google vertical product. Chrome OS is a Gentoo distribution with browser. Android already has Chrome browser support. Android already runs quite well on IA. I work with ChromeOS and Android. I much prefer developing with Android when it comes to HAL, frameworks and porting to hardware.

I have a Chromebook, and I agree almost entirely with Andrew. Chromebooks make a lot of sense if you consider them Google's attempt to liberate data from the local computer. They're a company with strong cloud offerings that is attempting to push a platform that requires a free and innovate internet. Apps are limited - they exist on a single OS and are only available from certain devices. "Apps" for Chromebooks can be run on any computer OS that has Chrome (or a browser that supports NaCL).

I think the vision Google has for Chromebooks to be simple, and to encourage the development of true web apps would be destroyed if anything fro Android is brought across. The best collaboration I could imagine between the two is an extension of Android to support the web more like a full Chromebook browser. Then both devices could push for a free and open internet.

In response to all the criticisms regarding chat articles, I do think they allow a better picture into the people who write the articles. Something a long time Ars reader may appreciate, but perhaps not a browser. I certainly find it interesting, although admittedly a little tedious.

I have a Chromebook, and I agree almost entirely with Andrew. Chromebooks make a lot of sense if you consider them Google's attempt to liberate data from the local computer. They're a company with strong cloud offerings that is attempting to push a platform that requires a free and innovate internet. Apps are limited - they exist on a single OS and are only available from certain devices. "Apps" for Chromebooks can be run on any computer OS that has Chrome (or a browser that supports NaCL).

If apps for chromebooks can run on on any computer, then why would you need a chromebook? In reality, the apps can't run on any computer. NaCL is developed by Google. It's just like ActiveX.

In the real world we have command line apps, desktop apps, app stores, web apps, app stores apps written in html, offline web apps, remote desktops giving access to apps, apps in VM's, etc. That isn't going to change. The real world is messy. A pure web based world will never exist. Therefore, Android needs to come to Chrome to get it out of the theoretical world that will never be.

If apps for chromebooks can run on on any computer, then why would you need a chromebook? In reality, the apps can't run on any computer. NaCL is developed by Google. It's just like ActiveX.

Because Chromebooks are cheap and simple. If it has critical mass, it will push the ecosystem that Google wants to thrive. PNaCL is set to be released, and open source, later this year. It can be included (as I understand it) in any browser that wishes to support it. If there's an ecosystem already using it, Google will certainly push for other browsers to come on board.

Since I have seen many people complaining in this thread and the SimCity one that they don't like this chat format, I wanted to jump in to say that I like it very much.

I think you just need to more clearly mark it as such, though. There are clearly people who don't like this format at all (eg, some people thought the SimCity chat *was* the SimCity review, even though the article itself clearly said that it wasn't).

I very much like these "chat logs" as an ADDITION to the existing articles Ars produces. However, if you start REPLACING articles with this format, well, that just seems lazy to me

The media seems to have a hard time understanding what an operating system is. The operating system kernel in this case is an obscure piece of software called Linux. There is no particular reason that the Android middleware, applications written to the Java based Android API, the web browser client, and JavaScript applications cannot all run on top of the same Linux Kernel with the C based Linux API to that kernel. Certainly Google is going to want to continue to build on the large installed base of applications written to the Android API. They will also want to position themselves to compete in the HTML5 JavaScript word if it ever really arrives. That is just business as usual for any semi competent software company. The real question is whether Google is going to try to extend either or both application stacks to the point where their package could be a serious competitor with Windows or Apple for full function PC's.

Sundar Pichai was also the person who delayed Google Drive by four years!

Quote:

At the time [2008], Google was about to launch a project it had been developing for more than a year, a free cloud-based storage service called GDrive. But Sundar Pichai had concluded that it was an artifact of the style of computing that Google was about to usher out the door. He went to Bradley Horowitz, the executive in charge of the project, and said, "I don't think we need GDrive anymore." Horowitz asked why not. "Files are so 1990," said Pichai. "I don't think we need files anymore."

Horowitz was stunned. "Not need files anymore?"

"Think about it," said Pichai. "You just want to get information into the cloud. When people use our Google Docs, there are no more files. You just start editing in the cloud, and there's never a file."

If apps for chromebooks can run on on any computer, then why would you need a chromebook? In reality, the apps can't run on any computer. NaCL is developed by Google. It's just like ActiveX.

Because Chromebooks are cheap and simple. If it has critical mass, it will push the ecosystem that Google wants to thrive.

Cheap netbooks and laptops already exist. The usual complaints of netbooks were that while they handled the web just fine, they didn't handle other apps fine. Chromebooks don't even have those other apps. Laptops are supposed to handle everything you throw at it, unlike tablets. Chromebooks won't sell just like Windows RT laptops won't sell.

Quote:

PNaCL is set to be released, and open source, later this year. It can be included (as I understand it) in any browser that wishes to support it. If there's an ecosystem already using it, Google will certainly push for other browsers to come on board.

Other browsers won't just build in PNaCL if Google gives it to them. It needs to be a Google independent standard, not just an open source component by Google.

The power of the web is that it is independent and can be used in every browser on every system. If Google starts creating their own standards, then what's the point of Chrome?

With Windows 8 you already can log in everywhere. You already can download your apps from the store anywhere. You already can use Office on they fly. And it already syncs settings across devices. What is doesn't have is independence. Chrome OS can have that, but not if they start relying on their own standards. Then it is just another company controlled OS. And maybe, that's what Google truly wants anyway.

What they need to do is kill Chrome OS and replace it with Android. Then expand Android to support desktop style applications. Of course doing that would be copying Ubuntu Tablet, but it makes way more sense then keeping Chrome OS. Android has more apps and is capable than Chrome OS.

The Chrome boss taking over Android scares me a bit. I like the browser's capabilities, but I'm not wild about the interface, and I'm not a fan of the whole idea of the Chrome OS.

Android does so very well in geeky circles precisely because we can blow it up and make it do whatever we want. Tighter control by Google would be great IF (and only if) they still left the project open sourced. I'm not sure how this would be accomplished.

I want faster updates just like everyone else, but I do not want a locked down, Apple-like experience either.

I know that this is a big deal mostly only to us geeks that like to tweak, modify, and otherwise customize our phones. However, Android got its start in these geeky circles. If they alienate us now, we'll pick up on something else that won't--when we do, we'll drive friends, family, and others in that direction, and Google would stand a real chance of losing ground in the great mobile war.

Anyone that thinks geeks are an inconsequential niche market hasn't done their homework. I'll give you an anecdotal example to ponder. When my friends and family see what type of phone or computer I'm using, they tend to emulate my practices because they know I pick my tech VERY carefully. If I switch, there's a good chance that a lot of them will too--even though they lie outside tech circles.

Android is a complex and delicate beast. I hope the new boss doesn't muck it up. :-)

Google is really starting to make me nervous. They have much too much power. Google is DEFINING what the Internet is now. This is not good. They're grabbing EVERYTHING and then either let it drop dead or work it into a nice foam.

But if the community can't get it's act together and despite all the tools (Linux, Ubuntu, Firefox, a load of perfectly good protocols and standards) can't offer anything worthwhile we will get what we deserve, I guess.

And no, I don't bother to read chat protocols I can't throw in a line now and then. This is worse than listening to my neighbours having bad sex. Ars, if you want to make this a regular format, please at least find a way to have me comment on a single paragraph inline.

ChromeOS is a waste of time, money, and energy. If Google had half a brain they would buy out the Android x86 project from Chih-Wei Huang and Yi Sun. Their 12-25-2012 release of Jelly Bean has successfully ran on about 80% of the random PC's I have tested it on.

If they had actual support from Google, the portable device market would be blown away. The entire Android OS is tiny compared to MacOS or Windows, and accomplishes most of the things basic humans use on a daily basis.

ChromeOS while a fun pipe dream, should NEVER had entered the market as a consumer product. While net availability is somewhat available most places via free or rental wi-fi, it is not necessarily good. An entirely netcentric OS is not applicable to the general populous, however the Android OS most certainly is.

If you have the know how, have a look at the Androidx86 project: http://www.android-x86.org/ it has made remarkable progress, with very little support.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.